Ron Hamilton, Shelbyville News staff writer
Architects for Indiana Downs told city planners this week that the racetrack's casino expansion will include an exclusive Wolfgang Puck restaurant or bistro.
"The company headquarters in California has plans to build a new dining establishment in the permanent facility," said Buddy Combs, an architectural engineering consultant with the Indianapolis firm of Browning Day Associates.
The pending arrival of the restaurant to the area was a pleasant surprise to some city officials.
"Think of it - a Wolfgang Puck restaurant right here in Shelbyville," said Mayor Scott Furgeson. "That is truly amazing. Things are coming along so quickly now."
Wolfgang Johann Puck is an Austrian-born celebrity chef, restaurateur and businessman who operates restaurants and catering services and produces cookbooks and licensed products. Since opening his first restaurant, Spago, on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1982, he and his company have grown to include 15 dining restaurants, premium catering services, more than 80 Wolfgang Puck Express operations and kitchen and food merchandise, including cookbooks and canned foods.
Combs told planning commissioners at Monday's meeting that the new complex will include 2,000 slot machines, a nightclub and employ nearly 400 people.
"The building will be temporary, however, until the permanent casino facility is built and will either be torn down by April 15, 2009, or leased out for other use," he said.
Members of the Shelbyville Planning Commission approved, with some stipulations, the site development plans for the temporary casino facility, as well as a five-story parking garage.
The parking garage will accommodate more than 5,000 people and be more than 50-feet high with parking on the roof," said local attorney Dennis Harrold, who represents Indiana Downs.
Planning commissioner Mike Evans expressed some concerns about ground-level parking spaces and traffic dangers posed by visiting truckers driving 18-wheel semi rigs.
"I think you need to be better prepared for truckers and recreational vehicles stopping to use the gambling facility, because the temptation to stop as they drive by will be too much for some of them," he said.
Casino engineering consultant Dan Keester assured Evans and other commission members that many traffic problems will be solved by a casino shuttle service.
"It will transport patrons safely back and forth the long distance between the casino and the racetrack," Keester said. "That should reduce the possibility of pedestrians getting hurt by truck drivers."